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Brain candy for Happy MutantsTue, 03 Mar 2015 22:22:53 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Chip-and-PIN cards let nearby fraudsters steal $1M at a timehttp://boingboing.net/2014/11/04/chip-and-pin-cards-let-nearby.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/11/04/chip-and-pin-cards-let-nearby.html#commentsWed, 05 Nov 2014 04:00:29 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=343226
Visa's new Paywave chip-and-PIN credit-cards have a $1M limit on foreign-currency transactions that can be verified "in-card," meaning that someone who gets close enough to your UK wallet can simply wave a phone at it and charge a megabuck to it without raising any realtime security alerts.]]>
Visa's new Paywave chip-and-PIN credit-cards have a $1M limit on foreign-currency transactions that can be verified "in-card," meaning that someone who gets close enough to your UK wallet can simply wave a phone at it and charge a megabuck to it without raising any realtime security alerts.

More practically, fraudsters with access to a crooked overseas bank could charge smaller amounts that might go undetected for weeks or months, and that would be low enough that police departments would be likely to ignore them.

According to researchers at Newcastle University in the UK, the card system developed by VISA for use in the United Kingdom fails to recognize transactions made in non-UK foreign currencies and can therefore be tricked into approving any transaction up to 999,999.99.

What’s more, because the cards allow for contactless transactions, wherein consumers need only to have the card in the vicinity of a reader without swiping it, a thief carrying a card reader designed to read a card that’s stored in a wallet or purse could conduct fraudulent transactions without the victim ever removing their card.

Since the transaction is done offline without going through a retailer’s point-of-sale system, no other security checks are done.

“With just a mobile phone we created a POS terminal that could read a card through a wallet,” Martin Emms, lead researcher of the project that uncovered the flaw, noted in a statement about the findings. “All the checks are carried out on the card rather than the terminal so at the point of transaction, there is nothing to raise suspicions. By pre-setting the amount you want to transfer, you can bump your mobile against someone’s pocket or swipe your phone over a wallet left on a table and approve a transaction.”

http://boingboing.net/2014/11/04/chip-and-pin-cards-let-nearby.html/feed0Man accused of stealing 37 doormats from Manhattan bankshttp://boingboing.net/2013/10/26/man-accused-of-stealing-37-doo.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/10/26/man-accused-of-stealing-37-doo.html#commentsSat, 26 Oct 2013 22:01:52 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=264222
Here's a sad profile of William Footman, an inmate at Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward who is believed to be behind at least 37 robberies in which the doormats were stolen from banks.]]>
Here's a sad profile of William Footman, an inmate at Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward who is believed to be behind at least 37 robberies in which the doormats were stolen from banks. Footman admits to some of these, but says that the rest weren't him; he claims to have worked at a rug factory, to have a wife and 15 daughters, and to have made ends meet by selling stolen bank doormats to bodegas. But there's a clear impression that he's a fabulist, possibly delusional, and that he's really in a bad place, despite the weirdness of his crimes.

He did not steal any of the rugs on the list dating back to March, he said. “I wasn’t even in town on some of those dates,” he said. Besides, he said, he got free rugs from his job. He said he had worked there on and off since the 1970s to support his family. “I have 15 daughters,” he said. “They’re grown. Now it’s like I’ve got 15 mothers.”

He was out of work for a spell. That was a year ago. So, he said, he stole rugs. From banks.

“Maybe seven,” he said. “All over the city.” Always at night, he said. He was never caught.

What did he do with the rugs?

“I sell them to bodegas,” he said. “Their floors get wet.” He got $30 and higher per rug, he said. It was unclear on Friday what the rugs were worth.

http://boingboing.net/2013/10/26/man-accused-of-stealing-37-doo.html/feed0Unsealed court-settlement documents reveal banks stole $trillions' worth of houseshttp://boingboing.net/2013/08/12/unsealed-court-settlement-docu.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/08/12/unsealed-court-settlement-docu.html#commentsMon, 12 Aug 2013 15:46:32 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=249286
Back in 2012, the major US banks settled a federal mortgage-fraud lawsuit for $95,000,000. The suit was filed by Lynn Szymoniak, a white-collar fraud specialist, whose own house had been fraudulently foreclosed-upon.]]>
Back in 2012, the major US banks settled a federal mortgage-fraud lawsuit for $95,000,000. The suit was filed by Lynn Szymoniak, a white-collar fraud specialist, whose own house had been fraudulently foreclosed-upon. When the feds settled with the banks, the evidence detailing the scope of their fraud was sealed, but as of last week, those docs are unsealed, and Szymoniak is shouting them from the hills. The banks precipitated the subprime crash by "securitizing" mortgages -- turning mortgages into bonds that could be sold to people looking for investment income -- and the securitization process involved transferring title for homes several times over. This title-transfer has a formal legal procedure, and in the absence of that procedure, no sale had taken place. See where this is going?

The banks screwed up the title transfers. A lot. They sold bonds backed by houses they didn't own. When it came time to foreclose on those homes, they realized that they didn't actually own them, and so they committed felony after felony, forging the necessary documentation. They stole houses, by the neighborhood-load, and got away with it. The $1B settlement sounded like a big deal, back when the evidence was sealed. Now that Szymoniak's gotten it into the public eye, it's clear that $1B was a tiny slap on the wrist: the banks stole trillions of dollars' worth of houses from you and people like you, paid less than one percent in fines, and got to keep the homes.

Now that it’s unsealed, Szymoniak, as the named plaintiff, can go forward and prove the case. Along with her legal team (which includes the law firm of Grant & Eisenhoffer, which has recovered more money under the False Claims Act than any firm in the country), Szymoniak can pursue discovery and go to trial against the rest of the named defendants, including HSBC, the Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank and US Bank.

The expenses of the case, previously borne by the government, now are borne by Szymoniak and her team, but the percentages of recovery funds are also higher. “I’m really glad I was part of collecting this money for the government, and I’m looking forward to going through discovery and collecting the rest of it,” Szymoniak told Salon.

It’s good that the case remains active, because the $95 million settlement was a pittance compared to the enormity of the crime. By the end of 2009, private mortgage-backed securities trusts held one-third of all residential mortgages in the U.S. That means that tens of millions of home mortgages worth trillions of dollars have no legitimate underlying owner that can establish the right to foreclose. This hasn’t stopped banks from foreclosing anyway with false documents, and they are often successful, a testament to the breakdown of law in the judicial system. But to this day, the resulting chaos in disentangling ownership harms homeowners trying to sell these properties, as well as those trying to purchase them. And it renders some properties impossible to sell.

To this day, banks foreclose on borrowers using fraudulent mortgage assignments, a legacy of failing to prosecute this conduct and instead letting banks pay a fine to settle it. This disappoints Szymoniak, who told Salon the owner of these loans is now essentially “whoever lies the most convincingly and whoever gets the benefit of doubt from the judge.” Szymoniak used her share of the settlement to start the Housing Justice Foundation, a non-profit that attempts to raise awareness of the continuing corruption of the nation’s courts and land title system.

http://boingboing.net/2013/08/12/unsealed-court-settlement-docu.html/feed0Kickstarting a detailed plan to rob five banks simultaneouslyhttp://boingboing.net/2013/05/25/kickstarting-a-detailed-plan-t.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/25/kickstarting-a-detailed-plan-t.html#commentsSat, 25 May 2013 15:50:11 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=232434
Artist Ilona Gaynor produced a piece called "Under Black Carpets" that took the form of detailed plans for robbing five banks near LA's One Wilshire building, simultaneously.]]>
Artist Ilona Gaynor produced a piece called "Under Black Carpets" that took the form of detailed plans for robbing five banks near LA's One Wilshire building, simultaneously. Gaynor worked with the LAPD and the FBI to produce a collection of fictional forensic evidence from these robberies, which were then exhibited. Now, Gaynor's trying to raise £20,000 to take the exhibit to tour the show. £30 gets you a cool-looking book, and £40 gets you the book and a tee.

WAIT, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO ROB THESE BANKS?

No. This is strictly a design / art project.

The exhibition of the work will be presented to the audience as a police investigation, detailing the remaining evidential material after the event has taken place, something that could be argued or challenged as material (evidence) in a court of law. The work itself will take form as sculptures, architectural models, technical drawings, films and photography. It will open as a solo exhibition (Special Project) at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale opening from Sep 12th - Dec 15th 2013.

http://boingboing.net/2013/05/25/kickstarting-a-detailed-plan-t.html/feed8Breathtaking ATM hack nets $45M in hourshttp://boingboing.net/2013/05/10/breathtaking-atm-hack-nets-45.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/10/breathtaking-atm-hack-nets-45.html#commentsFri, 10 May 2013 16:00:18 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=229423
The US District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York has indicted eight residents of Yonkers for allegedly participating in a global ATM heist that involved removing the withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards, cloning them, and then getting confederates all over the world to hit ATMs at the same time and clean them out.]]>
The US District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York has indicted eight residents of Yonkers for allegedly participating in a global ATM heist that involved removing the withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards, cloning them, and then getting confederates all over the world to hit ATMs at the same time and clean them out. The DA says that the scam netted $45M worldwide; $400K in NYC alone. One of the indicted defendants was murdered in the Dominican Republic last month.

The first heist, which occurred on December 22 and targeted debit cards issued by the UAE bank, dispatched carders in about 20 countries that rapidly withdrew funds in more than 4,500 ATM transactions. In New York City alone, prosecutors said, the defendants and their co-conspirators withdrew almost $400,000 in some 750 fraudulent transactions from more than 140 different ATM locations. It took just two hours and 25 minutes for the New York cell to complete, prosecutors said. A second operation commenced on February 19 withdrew about $40 million in 36,000 transactions worldwide. In just 10 hours, the New York group allegedly withdrew about $2.4 million in almost 3,000 ATM transactions.

The operation exploited weaknesses in the way banks and payment processors handle prepaid debit cards, which usually are loaded with a finite amount of funds. These cards are often used by employers in place of paychecks and by charitable organizations to distribute disaster assistance. Once the accounts were hacked and the limits removed from accounts, cards were cloned and sent to cell groups throughout the world to make fraudulent withdrawals. Additional details of the operation are available in a press release outlining the charges.

http://boingboing.net/2013/05/10/breathtaking-atm-hack-nets-45.html/feed26TCF bank penalizes kid with $4.85 in his account by charging him $234.95 in fees in two weekshttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/10/tcf-bank-penalizes-kid-with-4.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/10/tcf-bank-penalizes-kid-with-4.html#commentsSat, 10 Dec 2011 16:16:03 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=133726
A young man left $4.85 in his TCF Bank account. TCF assessed him a $9.95 "maintenance fee" for not having enough money in his account.]]>
A young man left $4.85 in his TCF Bank account. TCF assessed him a $9.95 "maintenance fee" for not having enough money in his account. Then they charged him for being overdrawn by $5.10 (ten cents more than he was allowed by their rules). In less than two weeks, they'd assessed so many fees and penalties against the account holder that he owed them$229.10. All for having the temerity to have a low-balance account. The bank said it was his own fault for not having more money. Finally, they relented -- only after being contacted by a newspaper.

"I try to raise my children the right way and if my son would have overdrawn this account because of spending money he didn't have we would have made him take care of it," she said. "But what TCF did is not right. Money is tight right now and if this is their way of making money, they need to be stopped."

Ganziano said the entire goal of setting up the account was to teach her sons how to be smart with their money.

"When they get zapped this way, why would they trust a bank?" she said.

http://boingboing.net/2011/12/10/tcf-bank-penalizes-kid-with-4.html/feed192Chase exec: we tricked naive borrowers into taking out subprime loanshttp://boingboing.net/2011/12/01/chase-exec-we-tricked-naive-b.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/01/chase-exec-we-tricked-naive-b.html#commentsThu, 01 Dec 2011 21:15:45 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=132418
An award-winning Chase vice-president has gone public with accusations that his bank deliberately tricked naive borrowers into taking out high-commission loans they could never pay back (his team wrote $2B in loans during the subprime bubble), putting the lie to the narrative that subprime was about greedy borrowers taking money they knew they shouldn't:

One memory particularly troubles Theckston.

]]>
An award-winning Chase vice-president has gone public with accusations that his bank deliberately tricked naive borrowers into taking out high-commission loans they could never pay back (his team wrote $2B in loans during the subprime bubble), putting the lie to the narrative that subprime was about greedy borrowers taking money they knew they shouldn't:

One memory particularly troubles Theckston. He says that some account executives earned a commission seven times higher from subprime loans, rather than prime mortgages. So they looked for less savvy borrowers — those with less education, without previous mortgage experience, or without fluent English — and nudged them toward subprime loans.

These less savvy borrowers were disproportionately blacks and Latinos, he said, and they ended up paying a higher rate so that they were more likely to lose their homes. Senior executives seemed aware of this racial mismatch, he recalled, and frantically tried to cover it up.

Theckston, who has a shelf full of awards that he won from Chase, such as “sales manager of the year,” showed me his 2006 performance review. It indicates that 60 percent of his evaluation depended on him increasing high-risk loans.

In late 2008, when the mortgage market collapsed, Theckston and most of his colleagues were laid off. He says he bears no animus toward Chase, but he does think it is profoundly unfair that troubled banks have been rescued while troubled homeowners have been evicted.